Marshmallow_Fluff
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How to Grow Women's Pro-Cycling
- Thread starter Flying_Monkey
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Excellent !
steve52
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there are women cyclists now?.............................................hide behind sofa!
thom
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thom
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Season's highlights - slightly OT I know but well:
Scruffmonster
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Your '1' and her '1' are seperate points.
I don't think that people really judge womens cycling to be inferior as the stages are shorter. Her point was that womens racing doesn't generally work the same as men's as the stages are shorter. The dynamic is completely different.
As a direct comparison, you never see womens tennis matches becoming wars of attrition. Both women competing are capable of playing for at least two hours longer than even the longest matches. This results in them remaining fresh for the entire best of 3 sets, never having to worry about fatigue in the way that mens tennis players do. They don't get as sloppy as men do, they execute more frequently, the standard remains higher. Womens tennis celebrates these facts. It's very rare for anyone to comment on the length of womens matches vs mens.
In that way, she has a point. I had never watched a womens road race until the Olys. While I'm still not at a point that I'd actively seek them out, I'd certainly watch if it came on.
II tanfi3ld II
New Member
I think a re-instatement of the women's U23 programme would certainly improve women's cycling as a whole
I did say what was needed - legislation. It is dead easy.I will address it in two ways.
plcs are required to have a policy on corporate governance. In there is a load of waffle saying none of their activities will discriminate on gender race or colour of skin. They will not run Tescos where they charge whites for parking but let Lithuanians park for free, beans are 30p a can for white OAPs but 40p if you are black. So far so good, everyone gets its. Some have specific policy statements on their community programs and sponsorship, they will only get involved in things that offer equality of opportunity or take up. Flora pulled out of sponsorship of a major sporting event some years ago, because the organisers thought the girls turned up to be decoration and did not deserve the same prizemoney. Dead simple - you have "cave-man" ideas, you don't get our sponsorship, we respect humans irrespective of gender, race or colour of skin. Most marketing departments are acting in direct contravention of the corporate ethics policies of their parent plcs, but you watch everybody run, when you point it out. "But girls don't like cricket". OK so don't sponsor cricket. "But w've done it for years ! Yep you have advantaged one sector of society against another for years - carry on if you want to be unethical, but if you want to be ethical, you need to recognise females and not give them mini-bats, bowl 4 ball overs on reduced length pitches and soft balls and then whine on saying nobody is interested in the girlie version of the sport.
Then there is the governing body. Above is what cycling effectively does with its rule book. That is part of the problem. The BMB ran mountain biking in GB. They were forced by UK Sport to amalgamate with the BCF. They were given an ultimatum. Subsume or we ensure your sport has no funding or support at any level (this was before it became an Olympic sport). Enshrined in the articles of the BMB was a statement about equality. Any event had to have equal prizemoney. Simple, honest and decent. You don't want to comply, don't put on an event. UK Sport have a policy stating they will not allow any sports, they support, to discriminate on the basis of gender. They have an officer with responsibility for gender and race equality matters in sport. HE thought it was ok to discriminate in terms of prize money. His idea was that the sport would evolve and equality would be achieved in future. HE failed to understand that we can be here until domesday and with a rigged market, all the media coverage, all the prizemoney, all the sponsorship, all the everything geared around the men, never would it evolve to equality, rigged markets want to stay rigged. UK Sport instructed the BMB to subsume and turned a blind eye as the ideals of that organisation were trampled on by, what was at the time, a pretty shonky set up. The equality officer did care, but did not care very much, certainly not enough to do anything about it and certainly not enough to think hard about the questions I put to him.
There was a great program on Radio 4 last night. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ngnwq the bottom line. There were so many cracking gems it was hard to remember them all. A lovely theme was that the Federation "blazers" really loved their sport. They were passionate about it, cared for its well-being and wanted to develop it. But they were always, totally useless at doing so. They were a always a complete waste of time. They always came up with 100 reasons why not. The program contributors were also highly critical of the developmental capability of the media. And that is exactly where we are at. Women's road cycling has been in decline for the last 8 years. It is now common practise for teams to renage on wages or unilaterally impose fines of "a months wages". The UCI are useless. The women's Giro is hanging on by a thread, the organisation this year was poorer than it has been since the very early 90's. It is not because the organisers are bad or incompetent, they just don't have the funds or goodwill from others to do what they have done so well over the last few years. When the women's MSR or Amstel disappear, the Women's Tour is hunted to destruction, because that was exactly what happened, when a hugely well established and well run tour like L'Aude goes after many years and nothing comes into replace it, you will understand there is no evolution. That has been tried for the last 30 years. It does not work.
What you stick in any legislation is secondary. That will come from the principle. And that is where you start. How do you view female participation in sport ? Let's take a recent Boucle stage (funny how the Tour organisation smashed Boue over the use of the title "Tour", he came up with the name "Boucle" and now the Tour use the Boucle in their press material as an alternative - oh and he started in Corsica a few years ago). but back to the principle - are you ok with women doing a stage over the Izoard 2361, Mongenevre 1850 & Sestriere and being treated as irrelevant, getting not 1/100 but about 1/1000 the prizemoney of the men, the UCI not even providing enough governance to secure a minimum wage that a cleaner in a cafe at the ski station would get ? If you are fine with that - then I hope your God blesses you. Governing bodies - completely useless at developing the sport. I am glad I only listened. I thought it, But I don't count.
plcs are required to have a policy on corporate governance. In there is a load of waffle saying none of their activities will discriminate on gender race or colour of skin. They will not run Tescos where they charge whites for parking but let Lithuanians park for free, beans are 30p a can for white OAPs but 40p if you are black. So far so good, everyone gets its. Some have specific policy statements on their community programs and sponsorship, they will only get involved in things that offer equality of opportunity or take up. Flora pulled out of sponsorship of a major sporting event some years ago, because the organisers thought the girls turned up to be decoration and did not deserve the same prizemoney. Dead simple - you have "cave-man" ideas, you don't get our sponsorship, we respect humans irrespective of gender, race or colour of skin. Most marketing departments are acting in direct contravention of the corporate ethics policies of their parent plcs, but you watch everybody run, when you point it out. "But girls don't like cricket". OK so don't sponsor cricket. "But w've done it for years ! Yep you have advantaged one sector of society against another for years - carry on if you want to be unethical, but if you want to be ethical, you need to recognise females and not give them mini-bats, bowl 4 ball overs on reduced length pitches and soft balls and then whine on saying nobody is interested in the girlie version of the sport.
Then there is the governing body. Above is what cycling effectively does with its rule book. That is part of the problem. The BMB ran mountain biking in GB. They were forced by UK Sport to amalgamate with the BCF. They were given an ultimatum. Subsume or we ensure your sport has no funding or support at any level (this was before it became an Olympic sport). Enshrined in the articles of the BMB was a statement about equality. Any event had to have equal prizemoney. Simple, honest and decent. You don't want to comply, don't put on an event. UK Sport have a policy stating they will not allow any sports, they support, to discriminate on the basis of gender. They have an officer with responsibility for gender and race equality matters in sport. HE thought it was ok to discriminate in terms of prize money. His idea was that the sport would evolve and equality would be achieved in future. HE failed to understand that we can be here until domesday and with a rigged market, all the media coverage, all the prizemoney, all the sponsorship, all the everything geared around the men, never would it evolve to equality, rigged markets want to stay rigged. UK Sport instructed the BMB to subsume and turned a blind eye as the ideals of that organisation were trampled on by, what was at the time, a pretty shonky set up. The equality officer did care, but did not care very much, certainly not enough to do anything about it and certainly not enough to think hard about the questions I put to him.
There was a great program on Radio 4 last night. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ngnwq the bottom line. There were so many cracking gems it was hard to remember them all. A lovely theme was that the Federation "blazers" really loved their sport. They were passionate about it, cared for its well-being and wanted to develop it. But they were always, totally useless at doing so. They were a always a complete waste of time. They always came up with 100 reasons why not. The program contributors were also highly critical of the developmental capability of the media. And that is exactly where we are at. Women's road cycling has been in decline for the last 8 years. It is now common practise for teams to renage on wages or unilaterally impose fines of "a months wages". The UCI are useless. The women's Giro is hanging on by a thread, the organisation this year was poorer than it has been since the very early 90's. It is not because the organisers are bad or incompetent, they just don't have the funds or goodwill from others to do what they have done so well over the last few years. When the women's MSR or Amstel disappear, the Women's Tour is hunted to destruction, because that was exactly what happened, when a hugely well established and well run tour like L'Aude goes after many years and nothing comes into replace it, you will understand there is no evolution. That has been tried for the last 30 years. It does not work.
What you stick in any legislation is secondary. That will come from the principle. And that is where you start. How do you view female participation in sport ? Let's take a recent Boucle stage (funny how the Tour organisation smashed Boue over the use of the title "Tour", he came up with the name "Boucle" and now the Tour use the Boucle in their press material as an alternative - oh and he started in Corsica a few years ago). but back to the principle - are you ok with women doing a stage over the Izoard 2361, Mongenevre 1850 & Sestriere and being treated as irrelevant, getting not 1/100 but about 1/1000 the prizemoney of the men, the UCI not even providing enough governance to secure a minimum wage that a cleaner in a cafe at the ski station would get ? If you are fine with that - then I hope your God blesses you. Governing bodies - completely useless at developing the sport. I am glad I only listened. I thought it, But I don't count.
Marshmallow_Fluff
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@resal
Very convenient! So your pride allows you to be humiliated by forcing your place by legislation!!
Not because your earned it, or because you proved to anybody that you are worth watching, but because there will be a law not allowing the teams not having you. Well let me tell you that men used to ride -not that many years ago- for the glory alone and the honour of participation and they earned their priviledge to be rewarded. No marketing trick or legislation made this sport spectacular to watch but the athletes alone. The money came afterwards and because of this very reason! I didn't see you saying anything about wanting to be given the right to compete for the pleasure of competition though! Your concerns are focused on prize equality!!
And what will you say if, when you force your place in, they decide to grand your wish by letting you compete against men -which at the end of the day would be the fairest of all, if you insist on equality- and you manage to get on a podium once every blue moon? How much will your prize money be then and how many women will be encouraged to participate knowing their odds?
And I don't know if you count or not. That's your decision to make. I know I do when I need to..
Very convenient! So your pride allows you to be humiliated by forcing your place by legislation!!
Not because your earned it, or because you proved to anybody that you are worth watching, but because there will be a law not allowing the teams not having you. Well let me tell you that men used to ride -not that many years ago- for the glory alone and the honour of participation and they earned their priviledge to be rewarded. No marketing trick or legislation made this sport spectacular to watch but the athletes alone. The money came afterwards and because of this very reason! I didn't see you saying anything about wanting to be given the right to compete for the pleasure of competition though! Your concerns are focused on prize equality!!
And what will you say if, when you force your place in, they decide to grand your wish by letting you compete against men -which at the end of the day would be the fairest of all, if you insist on equality- and you manage to get on a podium once every blue moon? How much will your prize money be then and how many women will be encouraged to participate knowing their odds?
And I don't know if you count or not. That's your decision to make. I know I do when I need to..
Marshmallow_Fluff
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Re-instatement? Isn't Women's Endurance element still on? (did I miss an issue.. or two?)
You just don't get it. Are you part of the rigged market ? The guy at UK sport who let the BCF walk over the BMB principle was the problem every bit as much as the misogynists at the BCF. He definitely did not get it. He looked at his job title and pointed. He was a defender of equality - his badge said so.
You have distorted the argument I put, to support your position.
There is no full time women's road program, the coach - Chris Newton - even at the time of the Olympics had two hats (one being the men's development program) and was stopped from attending women's races in Belgium on account of the cost of getting him there ! The Women's U 23 program seems to come and go with the wind. What more evidence of lack of commitment could be shown. But I am confident that to anyone connected with the women's program at BC currently, I am sure everything in the garden is rosy. Nobody is going up that pole unless they get the music and sing....Re-instatement? Isn't Women's Endurance element still on? (did I miss an issue.. or two?)
black'n'yellow
Guest
so maybe the 'ultimate' equality measure would be to abolish the women's categories, and have them racing with the men..? it already happens at amateur level...
thom
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OP
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Flying_Monkey
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Well, US Cycling is introducing major reforms next season along the lines that I was suggesting earlier - events that include both men's and women's races, increases in pay and prize money for women etc. Let's see how it pans out, but if the US can do it, I'm sure Europe could manage it.
